☕ One of my favorite parts of the day is enjoying my coffee outside on my patio. 🦋
This is one of my favorite places to slow down, relax, and enjoy a little quiet time. I might listen to a meditation, an audiobook, or nothing at all. Sometimes, just sitting quietly with my coffee is exactly what I need.
🦋 What is one of your favorite things to do each day that helps you feel happy and calm?
Share it with me in the comments. I would love to hear what brings a little more calm into your day. 🦋
P.S. Sorry the audio is a little echoing. 🦋
🦋 Hi, I am Patti Oskvarek of Coaching For Inspiration with Patti. I’m a Leadership, Work-Life Balance, and Life coach, as well as a Reiki Master, who helps individuals achieve their dreams, goals, and aspirations and live more purposeful, balanced lives outside of work.
I share strategies for achieving work-life balance, practical work and life tips, work-life balance affirmations, building better relationships, navigating leadership situations, and more.
Over the years, we’ve shared conversations about work, family, leadership, communication, resilience, health, and the many ways relationships influence our lives.
We laughed together.
We learned together.
And through it all, Better relationships begin with understanding and respect.
Episode 100 allowed us to pause and reflect not only on the feeling of being unappreciated but also on everything this podcast has taught us.
Some lessons came from our own experiences.
Others came from guests who shared their stories.
A few came from you, our listeners, whose questions and suggestions inspired episodes we might never have even considered otherwise.
One of the things we have learned is that relationships continue to grow when we are willing to listen with compassion and explore different perspectives.
This is what we hope this podcast is: a place where meaningful conversations help us better understand ourselves and the people around us.
Whether you have been listening since our first episode or have only recently discovered the podcast, thank you for sharing this journey with us.
We are grateful you are here, and we look forward to continuing these conversations with you in the upcoming episodes.
Here’s to building better relationships at home, at work, and everywhere life takes us.
BBR Intro and Outro video made in @headlinerapp The welcome and thank you graphic videos were made in @Canva
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and inspirational purposes only. The coaching tools, personal experiences, and Reiki principles shared are intended to support personal growth and healthier relationships. They are not a substitute for professional medical, mental health, legal, or financial advice. Please seek guidance from a qualified professional for your individual circumstances.
Many caring people find themselves carrying more than their share of emotional weight.
You want to help. You want to be supportive. You want the people you care about to feel better. But along the way, you may begin to absorb their stress, anxiety, frustration, or overwhelm as if it were your own.
This can happen in relationships, with your partner, in friendships, families, and even in the workplace.
Before you know it, you’re emotionally exhausted.
For example, someone shared a challenge they were facing. Your spouse is stressed, a coworker is frustrated, a family member is overwhelmed, or a friend needs support.
Hours later, you realize you’re still carrying the weight of that conversation and rethinking it over and over.
Many caring, compassionate people unintentionally absorb others’ emotions. While empathy is a beautiful gift, carrying everyone else’s emotional load can leave us drained, overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and disconnected from ourselves.
There is a difference between supporting someone and carrying others’ emotions.
Supporting someone allows us to:
Listen with compassion
Offer encouragement
Be present
Carrying someone else’s emotions often looks like:
Worrying about them long after the conversation ends
Feeling responsible for solving their problems
Absorbing their stress as if it were your own
Feeling emotionally exhausted afterward
Self-Reflection Questions to Ask Yourself:
The next time you feel emotionally overwhelmed after a conversation, pause and ask:
What emotions belong to me?
What emotions belong to the other person?
What do I need right now to feel grounded?
Am I supporting or am I carrying the emotions of others?
These questions can create awareness and help you reconnect with yourself.
The strongest relationships are not built by carrying everything for one another. They are built through connection, communication, respect, and emotional awareness.
In this episode of The Coach’s Corner, host Davina Lyons sits down with Patti Oskvarek, a Life, Leadership, and Work-Life Balance Coach and Reiki Master, for a powerful conversation about confidence, boundaries, and creating a life with intention.
Patti shares her personal journey from shyness and people-pleasing to finding her voice and helping others design a life they truly love.
Through coaching, Reiki, affirmations, and reflective practices, she guides individuals toward calm, clarity, and meaningful personal growth, both at work and beyond it.
✨ In this episode, we explore:
Finding balance in a busy, demanding world, letting go of people-pleasing and honoring boundaries, leading with intention and inner peace
Connection doesn’t have to be deep, intense, or exhausting. Sometimes, it just needs to feel safe.
At home, a supportive connection might mean asking for quiet time without guilt. At work, it could mean proactively sharing your progress on a project to reduce anxiety.
When you notice overwhelm:
Take a Pause
Offer yourself compassion
Choose one small action that supports connection
Podcast Affirmation
Even when I feel overwhelmed inside, I am learning how to stay gently connected on the outside.
If this blog and video spoke to something you’ve been carrying quietly, consider staying connected. Subscribe, listen along on YouTube or Spotify, and return whenever you need a moment of calm, clarity, and encouragement. Thank you for being here.
Kindness is more than being polite or pleasant. It’s a choice, a way of moving through the world with compassion, empathy, and respect.
Every moment offers a decision:
Will I react with frustration?
Or respond with calm and grace?
When we choose kindness, we soften tension, build trust, and strengthen relationships in ways that feel natural and authentic.
Simple daily examples:
Smile at someone passing by
Say hello or thank you
Offer a compliment
Slow down long enough to truly see others
These examples have a ripple through our day and often uplift the people around us more than we realize.
Kindness in the Workplace:
In the workplace, kindness is a powerful yet often overlooked leadership skill.
It may look like:
Listening without interrupting
Acknowledging others’ efforts
Offering help without expecting anything in return
Choosing calm communication, even in stress
When we pause before responding to a stressful email or a heated moment in a meeting, it can shift the entire tone of a conversation.
Kindness Toward Yourself:
Many of us freely offer kindness to others, yet struggle to provide it to ourselves. Self-kindness fuels resilience, clarity, and emotional well-being. Without it, we risk burnout, compassion fatigue, and inner frustration.
Self-kindness may look like:
Take breaks without guilt
Say “no” when you need to
Rest when your body calls for it
When kindness leads the way, others naturally feel safer, calmer, and more connected, and this is how compassion spreads, one moment at a time.
What is one small act of kindness you can offer today?
Life is full of work deadlines, family responsibilities, and the never-ending to-do list. In the midst of all this, gratitude becomes a practice that can shift our perspective during the day.
Stress can show up from decision overload, constant busyness, and the feeling that there’s never enough time. Gratitude offers a pause, a way to breathe and reframe our perspective.
By practicing the Reiki principle, ‘Just for today,’ I am grateful for my many blessings, which can help shift the focus from stress to peace.
This simple yet powerful reminder brings us back to the present moment.
Affirmation for Gratitude:
Just for today, I will give thanks for the little things.
Applying Gratitude at Work and Home:
At work: Before a meeting, silently name one thing you’re grateful for.
At home: Think of one thing you are thankful for.
Starting the day with gratitude, even on the most stressful days, feels better with a sense of thankfulness.
A Self-Reflection Journal Prompt:
How does practicing gratitude help lessen your stress?
If you tried one of these gratitude practices, let me know in the comments how it went.
From the daily grind of work duties to juggling family time, the daily choices can slowly wear you down and may lead to decision burnout and overwhelm, which is more common than you think.
Decision burnout or overwhelm happens when your mind becomes overloaded with too many decisions to make within a short period.
As time goes on, you may be experiencing:
Irritable with making decisions
Procrastination or Avoidance of making decisions
Overwhelmed by making decisions
Taking occasional breaks or going for a brisk walk can help.
Affirmation:I allow myself to pause before making decisions.
In this post, you’ll find the full video, a guided reflection, affirmations to support your emotional peace, and a simple practice to use anytime anger starts to rise.
In this gentle reflection, I explore another Reiki principle:
Just for Today, I Will Not Be Angry.
We’ll talk about how anger often shows up when we feel unseen, unheard, or overwhelmed, and how Reiki helps us lovingly release it. Whether the frustration is your own or something you’ve picked up from others, this principle reminds us we have a choice.
And in leadership, whether at home or work, clarity is everything. This Reiki principle reminds us that we can lead with calm, not chaos.
🌬️ Just for today, return to calm.
How does anger show up in your life, and how do you release it? I would love to hear your reflections in the comments below. 🦋 ~ Patti
Worry can be so loud at times, or silently evading thoughts. Either way, it’s heavy. And over time, it can pull us away from our presence, peace, and purpose.
One of my favorite Reiki Principles:
Just for today, I will not worry.
This simple phrase serves as a great reminder to breathe, reset, and return to a state of peace and calm, especially during stressful times.
In this video, we explore this beautiful Reiki principle, and I share a few calming ways to gently release the weight of worry, if only for today. It’s not about never worrying again; it’s about learning how to pause, reflect, and reclaim calm.
🦋 In this video and post, we will explore:
What worry does to our mind, body, and energy
Simple practices to ease stress in the moment
Reflective journaling prompts to help you let go
Worry is something we all carry, but we don’t have to hold onto it forever.
I would love to hear your reflections in the comments:
💬 What helps you let go of worry?
🎙️ Thanks for watching this video. Please like, comment, share, and subscribe.
